#star shaped cucumber

[adequately]

家庭菜園でデコきゅうり♪

[happymiffy]

[webdiggerxxx]

꧁★꧂

[darlin-djarin]

rebels fans be like omg ezra 🥺🥺 he is just a little boy please he is so small and sad and tiny and baby and oh my god he is two sauces tall please protect him pls og my god i’m going crazy he is so oUghHHH-

and then ezra is literally built like a quadrilateral.

[xi-vz]

Shen Yuan stared up at the man, disbelief clear on his face.

The man before him huffed a laugh, brown eyes becoming crescent shaped with amusement. He was a little taller than Shen Yuan, a little broader, with a sleeve tattoo covering his right arm to his wrist. His dark brown hair was softly curled, more wavy, and a little shaggy, falling to his shoulders. His face reminding Shen Yuan of Binghe. Not a lot, but just enough if he were to tilt his head and squint.

“You’re just a kid.” When the man finally spoke his voice was as smooth as velvet. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.” Shen Yuan automatically responded as he gawked.

The man had round wire glasses, a piercing on the left side of his lower lip, both ears were pierced, and he had cheekbones that belonged on a magazine cover. He was a little older than Shen Yuan expected. Somewhere in his late-twenties compared to Shen Yuans late teens.

“Cucumber-Bro, come on, I’m not that different.” Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky offered a smile, showing off dimples underneath a days worth of scruff.

“How old are you?” Shen Yuan demanded, still blocking the doorway into the dorm.

“Thirty.”

What the fuck?

“What the fuck?” Shen Yuan asked aloud.

Seriously, this was the caffeine addicted crack-writer?!

When Shen Yuan had woken up back in his dorm room instead of in bed with his husband in the bamboo house, he immediately contacted Airplane—it was a gamble, but it paid off. The relief Shen Yuan felt when Airplane responded was like a weight lifted off his shoulders. He gave the other man his phone number and address, then waited an excruciating five days until the two could meet. (Because Shen Yuan lived in Beijing, but Airplane apparently lived in Chengdu, and last minute flights weren’t cheap.)

Shen Yuan knew that his friend would look different. Hell, Shen Yuan looked different! A little shorter, a little rounder, way younger. With pitch black eyes, short inky black hair, and an ear piercing. He was pretty rather than handsome, softer than Shen Qingqiu.

And it wasn’t that Shang Qinghua wasn’t handsome—he was! Like everyone else in PIDW. But Airplane?

“Can I come in?” Airplane asked while shoving his hands into his back pockets. He wasn’t dressed fashionably. His beat up backpack was slung carelessly over a shoulder, jeans were ripped due to wear and tear, his faded band shirt was due to too many washes, his sneakers were scuffed. And yet…

Shen Yuan dressed in the latest fashion. He tried his best to look good, he had standards for himself! He looked like a C-Pop star.

Airplane wasn’t even trying to be hot. (WHY WAS HE SO HOT?!)

It shook something inside of Shen Yuan. All of his past theories of Airplane being a troll flew out the window.

“Well?” Airplane looked like he wasn’t above shoving past his friend to get in.

Shen Yuan allowed his friend inside, still shook.

“Shang Qinghua.”

“What?”

“My name, bro.”

“Wait…you used your actual name for the character closest to Mobei!? Fucking Mary-Sue!”

“Ah, there we go, there’s the Peerless Cucumber I know. Although it’s weird to hear such vitriol from a face so cute.”

Shen Yuan felt the blood rush to his face and wished he had a fan in his hands to use as a weapon when Airplane chuckled.

“Come on, let’s try to figure out how to get back home,” Shang Qinghua said as he moseyed to the desk in the room.

Shen Yuan sighed as he closed and locked the door.

BONUS:

SY: I thought you said you were a broke university student who wrote to make sure food was on the table.

SQH: Yeah, dude. I’m working on my dissertation. Writing pays the bills.

SY: YOU’RE GETTING YOUR DOCTORATES?????

SQH: Yeah, in Topology.

SY: YOU’RE GETTING YOUR DOCTORATES IN MATHS?????

[saint-ambrosef]

newbie's guide to produce

for all my peers who were not taught how to shop for veggies and fruit on a budget and struggle to use them before they go bad:

(disclaimer: prices are approximate based on where i live in the Southern US. costs may be higher in your area, but the comparison of cost should still be valuable.)

cheap produce year-round:

roma tomatoes. if they look under-ripe you can leave them on the counter for a few days. keeps in fridge for about 2 weeks. $1/lb.

cucumbers. around here they're 50-60 cents each. go bad quickly though, about 1 week in fridge.

celery. two bucks for a head. starts to get sad after two weeks in fridge. only makes sense if you like to snack on celery or make soups often.

corn. whole ears are like 20cents each mid-summer, otherwise just get frozen. $1.50 for a lb.

peas. get these puppies frozen for $1.50/lb. good protein, too.

romaine lettuce. one head is good for several small salads, about $2 and lasts a week in fridge. the big boxes/multi-packs may seem like a better deal but not if it all goes bad before you can eat it.

onions. kind of a given but you can get regular yellow varietals for less than a buck per pound. will last for 1-2 months in pantry.

potatoes. you can get 5lb bags of russets for three bucks. sweet potatoes are a lil over $1/lb. last 2-3 months in pantry; if they grow sprouts, you can cut those off and still eat it.

bananas. dirt cheap. a small bunch (4-5) costs like a dollar. if they go over-ripe before you eat them all just get less or get a few green ones (p.s: you're allowed to break them off larger clumps).

radishes. $1.50 for a little bundle. greens get wilty after a week, roots will last 2 weeks (you can use both parts).

hot peppers. poblano, jalapeno, etc., are often quite cheap and you usually don't need very many anyways. few weeks fridge or counter.

cheap produce when in season:

summer squash. in summertime (duh), zucchini and yellow squash are like $1.25/lb. only last a week or so though in fridge.

winter squash. actually in season in fall, these are your butternuts and acorn squash. less than $1/lb then. lasts in pantry for months.

green beans. in warm months they can be on sale for $1.50/lb! last 1.5-2 weeks in fridge? (kinda depends on the shape they're in)

kale. it's a cool-season green that commonly is on sale in colder months. $1.60 for a big bunch, about 1.5 weeks in fridge before it gets seriously wilty. (can be eaten cooked or raw!)

apples. fall/winter, usually at least one variety on sale for $1.25/lb. last forever.

oranges. most citrus are winter fruits. $1/lb. will last forever in your fridge.

strawberries. spring. at their peak, i can find them for $2/lb. otherwise they are too expensive.

watermelon. $8 for big 10lb melons. they can take up a ton of space though and need to be refrigerated once cut/ripe.

cantaloupe. another summer star! $1.50 each on sale. they will slow ripen in the fridge but you do have to keep an eye on it.

pineapple. $1.50 in summer time. might be ripe even when still a bit green, ready when they smell noticeably ripe.

pears. fall season, sometimes into winter. $1.20/lb. last 1-2 weeks on the counter or forever in the fridge.

pomegranate. in winter time they can be found for $2 each. tricky to peel though.

peaches. and nectarines (which are just fuzzless peaches). $1.25/lb in summer and will last for weeks in your fridge.

eggplants. summertime veggie, you can get for $1.50 when they're on sale. otherwise a bit pricey. keep in fridge for 2 weeks.

mid-range produce:

cabbage. three bucks for a 2-lb head but you can get a lot out of it. will keep 3-4 weeks in the fridge but any exposed cut sides will start moldering after a week.

mushrooms. white button or baby bella. $1.50 for 8oz. keep in mind, mushrooms halve in size after cooking. ~2 weeks though.

avocados. if you live in the South like me, small hass varietals are 60-80 cents apiece in winter. ripe when it gives just a little to squeezing (you can't go off color alone).

broccoli. fresh is $1.70ish per head and lasts a week in fridge. frozen is $1.50/lb but might be kind of mushy.

most greens. spring mixes, spinach, arugula, etc can really vary in price but often fall into a few bucks at least per bundle/package. in a fridge's humidity drawer they last 1-2 weeks.

kiwis. i love them but they're a bit pricey for their size. 50 cents each. their keep depends on how ripe they are at purchase.

expensive produce:

asparagus. one of the most expensive veggies. sometimes in spring you can get it for $2/lb (a steal but still a bit much). lasts 1.5 weeks.

brussel sprouts. same as above.

red or yellow bell peppers. they are used sooo often in recipes and it annoys me. often $1.50-2.00 each. last a long time in fridge.

caluiflower. three bucks for a head. yikes!

green beans. when they're not in season, they are like $3/lb.

snap peas. same as above, except they never seem to be on sale.

raspberries. go bad in 3 days and cost an arm and a leg. sometimes when they're in season you can get them for like $2 per half-pint as a treat.

blueberries and blackberries. even when they're in season, they're still $2 per pint.

grapes. they can sorta be affordable in the fall season for $2/lb, but otherwise they're double that. and usually you have to commit to buying several pounds. last 2 weeks in fridge.

plums. i love them so so much but they're only in season for like 2 weeks of the year it seems and they're like $3/lb.

inexpensive accoutrements: (for garnishes, seasoning, etc)

limes. 25cents apiece. they'll start to dry out after 1 week on the counter so keep them in the fridge unless you will use it soon.

lemons. usually 50cents each for the small varietals. keep same as above.

green onions. less than a dollar for a bunch, and you can easily regrow a few times at home if you stick the white rooted end in water by a window.

cilantro. 50cents. will last WAY longer (1-2 weeks) if you keep it in a mug of water in the fridge.

parsley. 85cents. same as above.

obviously sticking just with popularly available produce across the country. it's not an exhaustive list but can give you a bit more perspective on what produce you should be focusing on if you're trying to work with a tight grocery budget. good luck!

[kcrossvine-art]

Heya folks! Its been a bit, food insecurity is a bitch, but today on the quest of cooking our way through Lord of the Rings we're gonna be making a dish exclusively mentioned in the 2007 MMO-

We will be making a Rohan Pasty! 

(As always you can find the cooking instructions and full ingredient list under the break-)

MY NAMES CROSS NOW LETS COOK LIKE ANIMALS

SO, “what goes into a Rohans Pasty?” YOU MIGHT ASKBasics. Meat n potatoes of your meat-in-dough food. .

All-purpose flour

Salt

Baking powder

Vegetable oil

Olive oil

Ground beef

Garlic salt

Ground cumin

Chili powder

Dried oregano

Waxy potato

Garlic

White onion

Egg

"A delicious local pastry filled with beef and potatoes."- LOTRO Rohan is a kingdom of humans in middle-earth, and the description point towards a cornish pasty (yes, pasty not pastry). Oddly enough the image is more of an empanada but you win some you lose some. This heritage informs much of the shape and ingredients of this dish, however we're opting to cook most of the ingredients before adding them in, contrary to going in raw as a cornish pasty calls for. I chose to deviate here because cooking beforehand allows more seasoning to be crammed in. The english hate seasoning.

AND, “what does a Rohans Pasty taste like?” YOU MIGHT ASK

Tastes like the best pot pie youve had, less soggy

Excellent for an after-rugby/martial arts/soccer dinner

The potatoes are foundational

Despite needing the least work

Pasta salad (cucumber, olives, pepperocini) would pair well as a side

And would also pair well with beer

This meal bears the gold star sticker of not having any major issues! Hooray! Maybe its increased comfortability in the kitchen, or maybe its because of how very simple this one is. Chopped roasted bell pepper might be good in the filling in the future.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Get the dough ready ahead of time- its mentioned in the recipe below but i also wanted to say a foreword here that it needs to sit in the fridge for a few hours. Just so ya dont get everything out and realise itd take too long for dinner tonight. Speaking of dough, i feel like it could have more flavor added to it. Its bland and although its not part of the tradition of the meal its based off of, cornish meat pasty, it might be nice to add some spices like cumin or black pepper to the flour. 

The meal reheats perfect- wrap in papertowl and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds per pasty.

When picking your potatoes make sure theyre "new" potatoes (baby ones) or whichever potato with the least amount of starch you can get. Its important for it to cook inside the pasty that it not have too much lest it get Mushy Bad.

Another thing about its real-life inspo; Cornish pastys were workers food, stuff you could carry into the mines, stuff thatd reheat well. You could hold the crust with your dirty hands and throw it away once you ate the rest. I always feel partial to these foods. Although I'd still eat the dirty crust.

This recipe earns a solid 8/10 (with 1 being food that makes one physically sick and 10 being food that gives one a lust for life again.) 

🐁 ORIGINAL RESIPPY TEXT BELOW 🐁

Dough Ingredients:

370g all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

74g vegetable oil

240g warm water

Filling Ingredients:

2 tablespoons(ish) olive oil

1 pound ground beef

2 tablespoons tomato paste

Garlic salt to taste

Ground cumin to taste

Chili powder to taste

Dried oregano to taste

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 white onion, diced

Method:

Combine flour, salt and baking powder.

Add oil and water into mixer with dough hook running at medium speed. Mix for 1 minute, stopping several times to scrape the sides of the bowl.

When mixture comes together and begins to form a ball, decrease mixing speed to low. Continue to mix just until dough is smooth.

Take the dough ball, safely wrap it, and transfer to fridge. Let sit for at minimum 2 hours.

For the meat, get a large skillet, and add some olive oil over medium heat. Add the ground beef and garlic salt, cook until the beef is cooked completely.

Drain the beef and set aside.

In the same pan, add the garlic, onions, cumin, chili powder, oregano, and salt.

Cook until the onions are softened but not brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Re-add the beef and cook over low heat for about 5 more minutes.

Back to the dough, transfer dough from fridge to well-floured work surface. Roll into log and divide into 10 equal portions. 

Preheat oven to 350f.

Form each piece into a ball and flatten each with a rolling pin.

Add a layer of diced potatos down the middle of the pastys. Add the meat filling to each. Fold the sides of the dough up to seal on top in the middle.

Gently turn the pasty on its side and crimp the edge, alternating a braid pattern. Use knife to cut an "X" shaped slit in the top. Repeat for each pasty.

Place the pastys on a greased baking sheet. Lightly coat each pasty with an eggwash using a basting brush.

Cook for about 50 minutes, or until golden brown, and let cool!

[cameronspecial]

I'm Here

Pairing: Dad!Rafe Cameron x Reader

Warnings:  N/A

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 0.7K

Summary: Taking care of kids can be stressful, especially when running on low sleep. Good thing Rafe is a supportive husband.

Masterlist

Y/N had been home all day with three-year-old Mila and newborn Parker. It had been a stressful day for the mother with the former refusing to eat anything her mother made and the latter refusing to stop crying her little head off. She is on the verge of crying and she wants to call Rafe for backup, but she knows he has important meetings today. “How about a nice plate of dumplings? Mommy can order some,” Y/N offers her three-year-old. Mila shakes her head defiantly and crosses her arms, “NO!” The shout triggers her younger sister into another round of screaming. Y/N squeezes her eyes shut and rounds the corner to go pick up her crying daughter. “Mila, please don’t shout around Parker. You know it upsets her,” she chides her eldest. This causes Mila to start her own crying and this stresses Y/N out even more. The mother starts bouncing the baby up and down to see if it will calm her. 

At that moment, Rafe enters through the front door wearing his dress shirt with the sleeves buttoned up his forearm, his tie untied and hanging from his neck, and in black dress pants. His hair is devilishly run through by his fingers. This sexy business look is the reason why Parker was born. Y/N can’t admire her husband’s handsomeness because the newborn baby in her arms starts wiggling like crazy. Y/N’s face contorts to stress, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Rafe. “Are they going through another phase?” he asks, coming to give her a kiss. Y/N relishes in the feeling of his lips, “Yes. One doesn’t want to eat anything and the other won’t stop crying. I don’t know what is going on.” Tears start to swell in her eyes as her frustration starts to creep to the surface. Rafe sits beside her on the couch and gives her back a reassuring rub. He places a kiss on her temple and takes Parker into his arms. 

“It’s okay, I’m here. Why don’t you let me take care of the kids? I know you can handle it, but I also know you didn’t get a lot of sleep last night because you were taking care of Parker so that I could get to work on time. I am very grateful for that, so why don’t you take a nap while I take care of the kids,” he suggests, walking over to Mila and placing her on her chair at the table. Y/N closes her eyes and takes a small nap. When she wakes up, she can’t help but notice the silence and gush at the sight before her. Rafe is in the kitchen cutting strawberries into a star shape. Every few cuts, he would move Parker’s bassinet back and forward. Once all of the strawberries are cut, Rafe moves on to flipping the grilled cheeses on the stove. He plates the sandwiches and cuts them into a heart shape. He makes sure to eat any of the excess food so it doesn’t go to waste. 

He puts the strawberries onto the plate next to the sandwich and adds some square-shaped cucumbers too. He takes one plate over to Mila, who is watching Bluey while she patiently waits for her food, and brings the other one over to his wife. He checks over his shoulder to make sure that Mila is eating her food and gives Y/N a kiss on the lips. “I know you haven’t eaten, so please eat,” he whispers against her lips. Y/N gives him a relieved smile and takes the plate into her hands, “Thank you. How did you get Mila to eat and Parker to stop crying?” Rafe sits beside her and brings her onto his lap. “It took some bargaining to get Mila to eat. She would eat whatever I made her if I cut it into a pretty shape. And to get Parker to stop crying, I found blankie and it made her stop crying,” he tells her. 

Y/N ahh’s in understanding as to what she did wrong. She doesn’t feel like a bad parent for forgetting those details about her daughters, she knows her tiredness was the reason behind it. She is just thankful that Rafe was there to help support her. 

[bethanythebogwitch]

It's too bad Halloween was yesterday because I would have done a Wet Beast Wednesday on something creepy, like the tongue-biting isopod. It's not though, so so I'm dipping my toes into echinoderm science and talking about crinoids. While crinoids are the least famous echinoderms, being overshadowed by their relatives the starfish, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers, they are extremely well-represented in the fossil record. We know of far more extinct crinoid species than living ones.

(imag id: a crinoid attached to a rock. It is a long, slender stalk with multiple threadlike protrusions emerging from it. At the top is a crown that looks like a flower composed of feathery appendages. It is while all over)

As with all echinoderms, crinoids are bilaterally symmetrical as larvae for become radially symmetrical while adults. It is hypothesized that the ancestor of all echinoderms was a bilaterally symmetrical animal that evolved to become radially symmetrical as adults. This places echinoderms in the same clade as all other bilaterally symmetrical animals, including mollusks, arthropods, most worms, and all vertebrates. You are more closely related to a starfish than a starfish is to a jellyfish. Crinoids are one of those animals like anemones that look more like flowers than animals, which is why they're also called sea lilies. A typical juvenile crinoid consists of a stalk with a holdfast on one end and crown on the other. The stalk is segmented and made of porous calcified material called ossicles, which are attached to each other by discs. This is the part of a crinoid that fossilizes most easily and a great many crinoid fossils are only known from their stems. The holdfast is a root-like structure that attaches the crinoid to a substrate. Crinoids that attach to a hard surface have a branching holdfast to grip on while crinoids that attach to sediment have a thick, stalk-like holdfast that penetrates into the substrate like a tree's taproot. The crown is the part that looks like a flower and consists of two parts: the theca/calyx/arboral cup and the rays. The theca is shaped like a cup and has a mouth in the center. The mouth connects to a simple u-shaped gut that leads to an anus near the mouth. The rays are analogous to the arms of a starfish. All echinoderms have 5 symmetrical body segments and crinoids have five rays, though they usually branch after emerging from the theca, resulting in up to a few hundred total rays. The rays are segmented like the stalk and can curl up. Crinoids will curl up their arms and pull them in to protect them. The rays are used in feeding. Crinoids are passive suspension feeders that wait for plankton and organic particles to be carried into the rays by the current. Each ray is covered by flexible appendages called pinnules that give the rays a feathery appearance. Each pinnule is covered by tube feet that are coated in sticky mucus. When a food particle hits the tube feet, they grab on and transfer it to the center of the ray, which contains a canal called the ambulacral groove. The groove is filled with cilia that carry the food particle down to the mouth. All crinoids take this form during their juvenile phase, but only a few modern species retain it for their entire lives. Most modern species will shift into an adult form where the stalk falls off and the theca becomes free-swimming. These are often called feather stars. Both stalked crinoids and feather stars can use their rays to pull themselves along the substrate, but feather stars can also wave their rays around to swim. Swimming allows feather stars to more readily avoid danger and become more active in their attempts to catch food.

(image: a diagram of crinoid anatomy. source)

(gif id: a feather star swimming. It looks like a bunch of black-and-white striped feathers attached to a central disc. The arms are undulating, propelling the feather star through the water)

Crinoids are dioecious, meaning individuals are either male or female. In most species, the gonads are in the pinnules closest to the theca. The gonads actually swell up and cause the pinnules to burst and release the gametes. Different species have different strategies. In some, both sperm and eggs will be released into the water column. In others, only the males broadcast sperm which the females use to fertilize their eggs. The eggs are withheld by the mother, either by gluing them to her arms or incubated in sacs on the arms. The larvae, called vitellaria, are free-swimming and bilaterally symmetrical. They will swim for a few days before dropping to the substrate and attaching. They then metamorphose into juveniles.

(image: a diagram showing a crinoid progressing through multiple developmental stages from fertilized egg to larva. source)

The fossil history of crinoids dates back to the Ordovician period (485-444 million years ago), the period between the Cambrian and Silurian. While echinoderms and even stalked echinoderms existed during the Cambrian, the oldest definitive crinoid fossils are Ordovician and it's unclear which extinct group that crinoids evolved from. For over two hundred million years, crinoids were extremely diverse and were dominant sessile filter feeders, beating out anemones and corals. The mass extinction at the end of the Permian dealt a major blow to crinoids that they never recovered from, causing them to lose their dominance and become much less morphologically diverse. The Permian mass extinction is a fascinating period of history as it was the single greatest mass extinction in the history of Earth. The early Triassic saw a mass adaptation to more flexible and motile body plans in response to increased predation. It's not clear when feather stars entered the picture, though they may have come about due to predation in the Triassic. Some extinct crinoids had different survival strategies than modern ones. The genus Pentacrinites attached themselves to driftwood and floated through the open ocean. They would have been like floating islands of diversity moving through the oceans with lots of other animals following for food and shelter. A fact that gets passed around a lot is that the largest fossil crinoid ever found (Taxocrinus saratogensis) was 40 meters (130 ft) long. That isn't true and seems to stem from a misprint. It was actually 40 ft (12.2 m) long, which is still fucking enormous. Crinoids today don't get anywhere near as large as extinct ones could. Fossil crinoids measuring many meters in stem length are well documented while ones alive today never even reach a meter long. Crinoid fossils are extremely common and can be used to provide relative dates to nearby fossils. In some places, enough crinoid parts fossilized near each other that they became clustered together in sedimentary rocks called encrinites.

(image id: a fossil imprint of many crinoids attached to a piece of driftwood. The imprints ore in a flat, tan rock. The driftwood imprint looks like a long, dark blob. The crinoids have long, curved, and overlapping stems and fan-like crowns at the top. Fossil found at the Houston Museum of Natural Science)

[duckprintspress]

“A Truth Universally Acknowledged”: Four, Four Teaser Posts!

A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” is 80% funded! With 8 days to go! We’re really on a roll, and we’d love to keep that going to reach our goal early and maybe get to a stretch goal or two. Stretch goals are great for us, because they primarily are designed to enable us to raise the pay of our contributors!

In case you were wondering, there’ll be five more of these teaser posts after this one – so we’re almost halfway through the teasers. A lot of contributors means a lot of posts!

Story Teaser: Mikki Madison

Title: The Magnificent Mr. Markham

Excerpt:

“Why, Mr. Markham! How lovely to see you here!”

Mary swallowed a screech and spun to face her accuser. Georgiana lounged in the plush chair by the window in a most unladylike manner, her legs kicked over one of the arms while she leaned against the other.

“What are you doing in my room?” Mary demanded.

“You didn’t want to talk at the party, so I thought I would wait until we were somewhere you might be more amenable.” Georgiana gestured to the room. “Somewhere we won’t be overheard, for example.”

Art Teaser: Zel Howland

Zel is the creator of the spectacular art for the enormous folding fan we’re offering as a bonus! Here’s a bigger version so you can see some of the amazing details:

Zel has also contributed two pieces to the book! We’re only doing one teaser for artists who contributed multiple artworks, so you’ll have to wait to get a glimpse of the other.

Title: A Stolen Moment

Author Teaser: Lucy K. R.

Title: To Her the Pride

Excerpt:

“You could be so pretty!” Annabell offered during one of their small-group tea party practices. “I can bring my hair straightener tomorrow.”

“You’re not touching my hair,” Mia responded, pushing her untouched teacup away.

“Be polite,” Paige warned past her discomfort, glancing toward the prowling Mrs. Morrow.

“Why?” Mia demanded in return, turning those sharp eyes on her. “I asked Mrs. Morrow what it was for the other day, and you know what she said? ‘To make things simpler for people.’ So I said: ‘For who? It’s not simpler for me. Why should I make things harder for myself so other people can take it easy?’ and she didn’t have an answer for that. She just made me go to the reflection corner.”

“…did you reflect on it?” Paige asked, so mortified that she was in danger of getting sandwich crumbs on her dress from how her hand was shaking, but she was fascinated in equal measure.

“Yeah,” Mia allowed with a shrug. “I decided I was right.”

Paige had gone home that day with a spot on her lap from the cucumber slice that had dropped from her sandwich.

Art Teaser: Elizabeth Rose

Title: A Handsome Face

Story Teaser: Shea Sullivan

Title: A Constant, Fearful Longing

Excerpt:

“You’re not afraid of anything, are you?” Georgiana asked with a cautious smile.

“Oh, I’m afraid of all sorts of things,” Lizzy said. Everything inside her churned restlessly. “But I’m not afraid of you.” She looked up at the stars and picked out the shapes that Georgiana had pointed out to her, and then the ones they had made up together in summers past.

She feared finding Pemberley deserted, of losing the truest friend she had ever been lucky enough to find. She had never felt so strongly with Charlotte, or even Jane. No other person had provoked in her such a constant, fearful longing.

A claustrophobic grief gripped her suddenly, that losing Georgiana was inevitable—if not to a riot of terrified townspeople, or to her imminent departure, then merely to the steady march of time.

“Whatever would I do without you?” she asked quietly.

You’ve reached the end of the post! Now check out the campaign to learn about all our contributors and offerings!

[alphynix]

Strange Symmetries #03: Eerie Early Echinoderms

Represented today by starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and crinoids, the echinoderms have a characteristic five-way radial symmetry that makes them barely even recognizable as bilaterians. Their true ancestry is only revealed by their genetics and their larvae, which still retain bilateral symmetry – and the way they metamorphose into adults is bizarre, essentially growing a whole new radial body from within the left side of their larval body.

(Sea cucumbers and sand dollars are superficially bilateral as adults, but evolved this secondarily on top of their existing radial symmetry. And some adult echinoderms like starfish also seem to retain a little bit of "behavioral bilaterism", generally preferring to move with a specific arm always acting as their "front" end.)

The first known echinoderms appeared in the fossil record during the early Cambrian, about 525 million years ago, but the common ancestor of the whole group probably actually originated a few tens of millions of years earlier in the mid-to-late Ediacaran. Early echinoderms seem to have started off as flattened animals that sat on the seafloor filter-feeding, and with this largely immobile way of life their bodies started to shift into asymmetry, no longer constrained by the locomotory advantages of being bilaterally symmetric.

In fact, for these early sedentary filter-feeders being radial was actually much more advantageous, able to distribute sense organs all around their bodies and grab food from any direction without having to reposition themselves, converging on the lifestyle of non-bilaterian cnidarian polyps. The evolutionary transition from bilateral to asymmetrical to pentaradial seems to have happened incredibly quickly during the Cambrian Explosion, and all modern echinoderms probably evolved from a group called the edrioasteroids, maintaining their new base body plan even when they later began taking up more mobile lifestyles again.

But during the process of all that some very alien-looking lineages split off at various stages of anatomical weirdness.

Stylophorans had asymmetrical bodies with a single feeding arm at the front, and varied from irregular boot-like shapes to almost bilateral heart shapes depending on their specific ecologies. The highly asymmetrical forms were probably spreading their weight out over soft soupy mud in quiet waters, while the more bilateral forms may have been more streamlined to deal with stronger water currents.

Sokkaejaecystis serrata was a stylophoran that lived during the late Cambrian, about 501-488 million years ago, in what is now South Korea. It was tiny, only about 1cm long (~0.4"), and its boot-shaped body was surrounded by spines and flanges that spread out its surface area and probably also made it much more awkward for small predators to attempt to eat.

———

Meanwhile the solutes started off as immobile animals living attached to the seafloor via a stalk-like appendage. But fairly early in their evolution they switched to a more active mode of life, modifying their stems into tail-like "steles" that were used to push themselves along.

Maennilia estonica lived in what is now Estonia during the late Ordovician, about 450 million years ago. It was quite large for a solute at about 12cm long (~4.7"), with a sort of vaguely-trapezoidal body, a short feeding arm, and a long thin stele.

Both of these strange early echinoderm lineages were surprisingly successful, surviving for a good chunk of the Paleozoic Era alongside their more familiar radial relatives. The solutes lasted until the early Devonian about 400 million years ago, and the stylophorans continued all the way into the late Carboniferous about 310 million years ago.

———

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[forms-and-phyla]

Phylum #6: Echinodermata!

Starfish! And sea urchins, sea cucumbers and other little creatures! All of them are united by having a hard skeleton made of tiny elements called ossicles. They also have hundreds of little tube feet, powered by a entirely water pressure-based vascular system!

They're also pretty unique among bilaterians for having switched their usual bilateral symmetry for a five-way one (yes, urchins have a five-pointed star under their spikes!). Even weirder, some of them like sand dollars and sea cucumbers switched again, and got their bilateral symmetry back!

Most echinoderms are pretty familiar, but some can take on pretty unique shapes. Crinoids are filter-feeders shaped like large feathered tufts - some fixed on a stalk, while other can walk or even swim by themselves, undulating through the ocean. Until the Jurassic, reefs and rafts of crinoids floating on driftwood were extremely common, at the heart of most marine ecosystems!

Sea cucumbers are also known to exhibit quite interesting forms among echinoderms, with Pelagothuria being nearly jellyfish-like in appearance!

[cheftulips]

It’s officially crochet season and I’m determined to finish my blanket. I started this project years ago with yarn collected from friends and family, it’s super sentimental to me. I started running out of yarn ~ which is an amazing feeling ~ and I want to make a few more granny squares with a star shaped pattern to add a bit of cool. My final step would be looking up a border pattern and buying yarn for that.

(๑ᵔ⤙ᵔ๑)

Listened to Lamp, cleaned my room, and made a salad featuring lettuce, cucumber, tomato, dill, mint, chicken, homemade honey shallot vinaigrette, topped with feta cheese.

[skibasyndrome]

Finally making a pinned post, hope I do this right

my name is Simon, you can call me that or skibasyndrome or any variation of either that you can think of

25-y/o university student with a passion for literature and languages and everything surrounding that (hmu, I will talk about it for hours)

me and tumblr go way back (like... 2012 way back), but it's only through my very recent discovery of Young Royals (August 2023) that I decided to get back into online fan spaces after a long break (best decision ever btw)

I'm gay and a trans man

I mostly just write fics (or talk about writing)

Feel free to reach out and talk to me about anything and everything, I love talking to people :)

things to note about this blog

I will simp about Omar Rudberg. Sorry, I'm just too gay for whatever it is he is doing 24/7

there's almost always a party in my tags because that's where I go to voice my opinions or just be... emotionally affected by things

hope you like Young Royals, because there's rarely anything else on here these days

personal posts are tagged "simon.out."

should go without saying but fuck right off with any -isms or -phobias

See my Young Royals fics below the cut (or at skibasyndrome on ao3)

It seems a place for us to dream (T, 1.8 k)

Or: The things going through Wilhelm's head during that S3 snippet.

You crave the Applause / Yet hate the Attention (E, chaptered, 4/4, 22.3 k)

Or: How Wilhelm realizes that maybe, if you squint a little, he might have a praise kink.

But I'm a vampire smile, you'll meet a sticky end (E, 4.1 k)

Or: Simon's vampire-esque makeup is really doing things to Wilhelm that he didn't expect. A Halloween fic.

In This Together (T, 3.5 k)

Or: Wilhelm tries — and fails — to surprise Simon with hot chocolate. Simon doesn't mind. Contribution to Wilmon Secret Santa 2023.

It's in the water, baby (E, 4.9 k)

Or: A sweet and spicy story sponsored by the infamous Lake Still (TM) s3 promo pic.

Never Letting You Go (E, 5.7 k)

Or: The infamous Hallway Smut (TM) Scene as briefly seen in the S3 trailer and (re)imagined by me. There's light angst, sex, and so many feelings.

Lavender Haze (E, 13.3 k)

Or: Wilhelm spots the most gorgeous man in a nightclub. He's wearing a lavender shirt that makes Wilhelm's head spin and imagination run wild. And a smile that does things to his heart he's not quite sure what to make of yet.

All this shit is new to me (E, chaptered, 3/?, 24 k)

Or: After meeting and hooking up with Simon at a club, Wille needs to figure out what exactly that means for them (or whether there even is a "them" to figure out). A sequel to Lavender Haze.

Wille's Month 2024:

Day 1 (Sandwich): Vegan butter, two slices of Gouda, a few slices of cucumber (G, 1.6 k) Day 8 (Wedding/Engagement): Roots of Love (T, 1.2 k) Day 9 (Riding): Close, Closer (E, 1.3 k) Day 25 (Hands): Got my Hands all over You (E, 7.1 k)

Simon's Month 2024:

Day 2 (Food): I could eat that boy for lunch (M, 7.9 k) (co-written with @iwouldnevergetintofanfic & @pagegirlintraining) Day 14 (Senses): Kyss mig med dinä röda läppar (or, affectionately: the cherry fic) (T, 3.4 k)

Flash The Camera, You're A Star! (T, 10.1 k) (co-written with @pagegirlintraining)

Or: the one where Wille is an even bigger simp than usual and Simon can’t quite stay mad at him.

(ca.)-5-sentence-ficlets

Or: people send me a sentence, I write 5 or more sentences to turn it into a ficlet. wild variety of stories ranging from dark to fluffy to (slightly) steamy (always open for these types of prompts, "series" ongoing)

YR Kinktober 2024 (Masterpost here)

(ongoing series) Day 1: Sit back and watch (I'm gonna dance for you) (masturbation & spit) Day 2: Sharpen your teeth, sink into me (marks & biting) Day 3: In silence, I'm yours (sound/staying quiet, hands & 69) Day 4: Love the shape of your mouth (and the back of your head) (makeup, praise kink, oral sex, deepthroating and light dacryphilia) Day 5: I've never met arms like yours (cockwarming & spooning) Day 6: And the mirrors gon' fog tonight (mirror, hands, a little bit of praise) Day 7: One, two, three (Not only you and me) (threesome, first time [having a threesome], lapdance) Day 8: Body language say you wanna (semi-public sex, cruising, roleplay) Day 9: On the tip of my tongue, on the top of your thighs (1/2) (wax play, thighs, marks) Day 10: And if I searched a thousand miles I'd be dying to find (2/2) (intercrural sex, thighs, marks, oral sex) Day 11: My skin on your skin, again and again (frottage, cum play, fingers) Day 12: In the back of your car there's a big black mark (where I ripped the seat) (car sex, riding, a little breathplay/choking) Day 13: Find a brand new way of seeing (Your eyes forever glued to mine) (1/2)

Like we're dancing (you and me) (T, 3.1 k)

Or: Wille is nervous to meet her parents for dinner. Simon is there for her.

Birthday Boys (T, 14.1 k) (co-written with @iwouldnevergetintofanfic)

Or: best friends Simon and Wille share a birthday. On their twentieth birthday - their first birthday apart in years - some realizations happen.

[muffinman1900]

Soukoku (Dazai X Chuuya)

Food packages

Sorry for any spelling mistakes, I’m dyslexic and I can’t proof read for the life of me. I take requests if anyone wants anything!

(This is 739 words)

Dazai awoke in the morning in his agency dorm room. This is normal, but what isn’t is the lack of a small paper bag at the end of his bed.

Every evening, Chuuya, in his luxurious penthouse, would make himself some healthy dinner. It would be spicy and good for the body. Those three things: healthy, good and spicy, were not to Dazai’s taste.

Chuuya (the biggest Dazai simp alive) was quite aware of this. He was also aware of his husband's lack of motivation to stay alive. This includes forgetting to eat, not due to not wanting to but genuinely forgetting. It didn’t help that Dazai was a picky eater, making finding food for himself harder, there was always an ingredient he just hated. Most of his eating habits started due to Dazai’s braces when he was younger. He hated getting food in them and got told off by his orthodontist a lot; Dazai had terrible teeth anyway, and it wasn’t his fault. For Chuuya, Dazai being a picky eater was actually good.

After being work partners since 15, they both knew each other's eating habits off by heart. Dazai never tried anything new. However he did try one new thing a month- and he usually didn’t like it at all.

Chuuya affectionately makes Dazai rice balls in an array of shapes, like stars, bears and cats, and cut cucumbers into star shapes along with some other food and would put it in an orange bento box.

He would put some dried strawberry granola in a heart shaped pot with some strawberry yogurt, and put a little spoon with it.

He would put some apple slices without the skin and orange quarters in a separate blue divider pot with sharks on it.

He basically made exactly the same things every night as he made himself his own dinner, and he would put it in a paper bag. Chuuya writes little notes, telling Dazai to remember to do things, or to have a good day, or simply to say he loves him. He would write with small loopy handwriting, and would sign his name in red ink. He used a little heart sticker to stick the notes to the side of the bag.

Every night, after Chuuya ate his dinner, he would sneak into the agency’s dorms, and open Dazai’s unlocked dorm room door to leave the small bag at the end of his bed.

Every evening Dazai would drop the same bag off at the front desk off the building where Chuuya’s penthouse was.

But today, as Dazai woke up, hearing sounds of light commotion in the office nearby, he didn’t see the bag at the end of his bed.

That was odd. But Dazai continued his day as he normally would.

Dazai made his way into the office and he was very happily surprised. There was Kunikida, Yosano and Ranpo standing around a chair with Chuuya tied to it.

“Chuuya!” Dazai beemed, “how are you today?”

“Well Osamu, your co-workers have me tied to a chair, but apart from that I’m pretty good, what about you?” He replied almost like this was completely normal.

“I’m a bit hungry if I’m honest.” Dazai said tauntingly. He knew why Chuuya was currently tied to a chair- he got caught entering to give Dazai food.

“Oh shut up.” Chuuya replied, starting a bickering match between the two.

To say Dazai’s co-workers weren’t astonished by this would be utterly incorrect. They just sat there baffled until Kunikida decided to stop the two arguing.

“Dazai. Do you know why Nakahara, one of the Port Mafia’s strongest executives, was in our dorm building?”

“Oh Kunikida~ Chuuya here wasn’t doing any harm! Actually he was technically helping us!” Dazai giggled childishly.

“What do you mean?” Ranpo asked in a more mature voice than normal.

“He was just delivering me food! Can’t a husband retrieve food from his beloved?” Dazai asked in a sing-song voice.

Dazai united Chuuya, and Chuuya walked over to a desk where the paper bag had been placed. He gave it to Dazai, gave him a hug and then a kiss on the cheek.

“Have a good day!” Dazai shouted as Chuuya jumped out of the window, flying off with gravity manipulation.

“What the fuck just happend?” Yosano exclaimed.

Dazai pulled out his strawberry granola and yogurt and started working quietly, humming the tune to his favourite song about double suicide.

[matcha-latte-addict]

Hey I was wondering what I could put in my water that would be low in calories? I have a really hard time drinking water just by it’s self 😭

Omg same. I hate plain water at room temperature with burning passion, literally makes me wanna puke lol.

Here's what you can do:

You can add slices or juice of citrus fruits like lemon, lime, orange or grapefruit; fresh herbs like mint leaves (so good for summertime), basil, rosemary, thyme; honey, ginger, cucumber slices for a better taste; fruits like berries (I personally love slices of strawberries, they look so pretty!), pineapple, mango, kiwi, peach, whatever you like really (you can crush it a little for stronger taste). You can find some very interesting combos on tiktok or pinterest!

You can keep your water in the fridge or add ice cubes. Personally, I find it so much easier to drink water when it's cold. Bonus: your body uses more energy to raise it's temperature. It's not much, but if you drink it cold all the time then it's like 80 calories burned in a day extra.

You might find drinking sparkling water easier. Still no calories, but may be more fun to drink.

Make your drink aesthetically pleasing - you might find it easier to drink your water if it looks pretty! For example: Keep it in a pretty water bottle / glass / glass jug / cup. Add some of the stuff mentioned above. You can even add edible flowers to make it look prettier. You can make your ice cubes pretty too! Some examples: Get ice cube trays in shapes that you like, could be hearts, butterflies, balls, stars etc. You can use food coloring so you end up with pink ice cubes or whatever color that you like (: You can also just use a smoothie to make some pretty and tasty ice cubes. Just pour your smoothie into ice cube tray and freeze it. You can add tiny pieces of food mentioned above to your ice cubes too! Just throw them into ice cube tray first and fill it up with water.

Have fun~!